Indeed, half a cold chicken and a dish of rice constituted the repast. A bottle of claret stood by Odd’s place, and there was a white jar filled with buttercups on the table; but even Rosalie seemed depressed by the air of meagreness, and gave them a rather effaré glance as they sat down. Odd suspected that the cold chicken was in his honor. He had come to the conclusion that Hilda was capable of dining off rice alone.
“Delightful!” he said. The chicken and rice were indeed very good, but Hilda saw that he ate very little.
“I make no further apologies,” she said, smiling at him over the buttercups; “your hunger be upon your own head.”
“I am not hungry, dear.”
Hilda had to do most of the talking, but they were both rather silent. It was a happy silence to Hilda, full of a loving trust.
When he spoke, it was in a voice of the same gentle fatigue that his eyes showed; but as the eyes rested upon her she felt that the past and the present had surely joined hands.
CHAPTER X
ODD went in the same half-dreamy condition through the morning of the next day. He walked and read, but where he walked and what he read he could hardly have told.
He was to fetch Hilda from the Rue d’Assas and go home to tea and dinner with her. His love for Hilda had now reached such solemn heights that his late flight seemed degrading.
So loving her, he could not be base.